Eight million dollar bike injury

[Fairweather]

So your position is, then, that the "typical road bike" is patently unsafe?

Yes.

 

And, on a separate note: do you have information to indicate that Mr. Gendler was operating a "typical road bike?"

Speculation. But I'd put $$ on it.

Would someone having been on a mountain bike as you espouse have avoided the accident that befell him?

Given the descriptions I've read--and Jim's post earlier today--I'd have to say that's likely. But who knows?

[JayB]

I'm all for the folks that maintain the roads addressing structural hazards to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians in a timely fashion when they become evident. It may be that the cyclist in question has a legitimate case against the city.

 

Having said that - there are a gazillion hazards that you encounter as a cyclist, some of which are foreseeable, some of which are not. The stuff that isn't engineered into the road surface, like a pothole, an oil-patch, a bit of road-grit, someone opening their car door, etc, etc, etc, etc can cripple you just as easily as a structural feature of a roadway with a design flaw, so in the final analysis it's up to you to actively assess what's safe and what isn't rather than relying on the wisdom and foresight of the SDOT.

 

I've commuted by bike for all but three years since 1992, and have ridden across the bridge in question dozens of times. I can actually remember thinking - "Hey - it's a grate, but no problem, since my tires are wider than the gate." I've also eaten-shit a dozen times when I failed to recognize hazards that the fellow in the story may have had the presence of mind to avoid, so I'm not sure what the moral of the story is other than a)it helps to develop a healthy sense of paranoia if you commute by bike and b)it's much better to be lucky than good.

[Fairweather]

You added your "ancedtoe" about your father's bicycle license. I agree to the extent that you argue that cyclists should be expected to fulfill licensing requirements if they expect public infrastructure and law enforcement to apply to them but I have frequently understood you to argue that law enforcement and "Public" infrastructure were too broadly applied in our society. Shouldn't somebody be able to ride their bike to work outside your demand for POLICE and LICENSE authority?

 

Can the driver of a car "opt out" of the auto licensing requirement?

[mattp]

OK then. "Typical" road bikes are unsafe according to Mr. Fairweather, and anybody who rides on one should not expect public roadways to be safe for them.

 

Further, with regard the specific incident that underlies this discussion Mr. Fairweather assumes that had the injured party been riding on slightly wider tires the incident would not have occurred. (Let me be clear: I have no knowledge either way, but I assume that Mr. Fairweather does not either of I would expect that he would have presented it here.)

[Fairweather]

OK then. "Typical" road bikes are unsafe according to Mr. Fairweather, and anybody who rides on one should not expect public roadways to be safe for them.

 

Further, with regard the specific incident that underlies this discussion Mr. Fairweather assumes that had the injured party been riding on slightly wider tires the incident would not have occurred. (Let me be clear: I have no knowledge either way, but I assume that Mr. Fairweather does not either of I would expect that he would have presented it here.

 

You can put away that whole lawyer thang, Matt. This is just a discussion. :kisss:

[j_b]

License tabs and mandatory liability insurance for road cyclists.

License tabs and mandatory rescue insurance for climbers.

Mountains aren't "infrastructure". And in any event, we are forced to register and pay a fee these days, no?

 

Roads, parking lots, toilets, camping sites, and land management administration aren't infrastructure? Do you expect climbers on Denali to bring the bodies down by themselves?

 

So which is it? are you for user fees or not? you can't have it both ways no matter how much you try to weasel out of giving a straight answer.

[ZimZam]

a)it helps to develop a healthy sense of paranoia if you commute by bike and b)it's much better to be lucky than good.

I am already a hopeless paranoid to begin with. I commute 30 miles daily via bike, it is incumbent upon the rider to be aware at all times for every eventuality. Because when you aren't paying attention is when the poo hits the prop. I've been hit twice in 10 years. Both times I saw it coming and even then I couldn't react fast enough w/o being struck. "Luckily" I walked away both times. Got two new bikes out of the deal to. I wasn't hurt, don't like lawyers, so I was happy to walk away. Now if they didn't get me a new bike, well, I don't know what I woulda done.

[mattp]

No "lawyer thing" here, Fairweather. My only point in suggeSting that you would have presented if if you had "ACTUAL INFORMATION" is that you are usually straight forward if you actually have information about a topic. Here, it IS just discussion, though, and we engage in plenty of discussions based on little more than abstract thought.

 

Maybe there should be new bicycle standards put in place but I think most people would agree that if there was a "typical road bike" standard and we now think that standard is unsafe, it would not be "fair" or "reasonable" to expect or demand that Mr. Gendler should be held to such standards in hindsite.

 

That specific case aside, I would think it was probably in the public benefit if, in light of Mr. Gendler's large settlement agreement, there were new standards put in place and my friends who ride bicycles to work were soon going to be able to do so more safely. This would be probably much cheaper and more efficient than having some government bureaucracy study the issue and eventually reach the same conclusion. (I know you believe he doesn't deserve the $8 million, and that bike safety is not important, but I again repeat my question about whether you would prefer that a government agency be expected to inspect our roadways for bicycle safety and establish the rules. I note that you distorted this argument already but will you please answer the question?)

 

I don't ride a bike, as my back problems don't allow me to do so, but I believe my friends and neighbors who want to do so should be able to do.

[Hugh Conway]

The stuff that isn't engineered into the road surface, like a pothole

 

uh, potholes are poor maintenance and underinvestment.

 

course if we had a national health care plan things would be different, but then we wouldn't spend 30% on admin

[Off_White]

there are a gazillion hazards that you encounter ... some of which are foreseeable, some of which are not... so in the final analysis it's up to you to actively assess what's safe and what isn't rather than relying on the wisdom and foresight of the SDOT.

 

So, if you have your skull crushed by a baseball bat wielding racist thug who mistakes you for a darkie or get shot in the chest by a cop who thinks you're reaching for a gun when you're getting out your cellphone, it's all the same and your own damn fault, right?

[Hugh Conway]

there are a gazillion hazards that you encounter ... some of which are foreseeable, some of which are not... so in the final analysis it's up to you to actively assess what's safe and what isn't rather than relying on the wisdom and foresight of the SDOT.

 

So, if you have your skull crushed by a baseball bat wielding racist thug who mistakes you for a darkie or get shot in the chest by a cop who thinks you're reaching for a gun when you're getting out your cellphone, it's all the same and your own damn fault, right?

 

No, it's the teamsters fault for teaching them about violence.

[prole]

LULZ

[Bronco]

Damn right. After all, this guy paid an annual license tab fee and affixed it to his bike for these roads to be kept to cycling standards. Right? Um, ok. Oh. Really? No? Not one dime?

 

 

This is an all too common and perplexing attitude. The only cyclists I've encountered who probably don't pay more than their fair share of taxes are the dorks riding on the sidewalks.

 

Don't tax me just because I don't look good in spandex.

 

[JayB]

there are a gazillion hazards that you encounter ... some of which are foreseeable, some of which are not... so in the final analysis it's up to you to actively assess what's safe and what isn't rather than relying on the wisdom and foresight of the SDOT.

 

So, if you have your skull crushed by a baseball bat wielding racist thug who mistakes you for a darkie or get shot in the chest by a cop who thinks you're reaching for a gun when you're getting out your cellphone, it's all the same and your own damn fault, right?

 

Quite a leap from A to Z there! Reminds me of the halloween costume post from a few years back!*

 

My point is that even if there were roving patrols of MIT trained civil engineers out in force inspecting every bikable city-maintained surface for design flaws that would potentially present an outsized hazard to cyclists and instantaneously modifying them to remove the hazard - there'd still be distracted drivers, patches of grit, folks opening doors, leaf-piles, etc, etc, etc that could make you crash and leave you crippled.some of which are foreseeable, some of which are not... so in the final analysis it's up to you to actively assess what's safe and what isn't rather than relying on the wisdom and foresight of the SDOT.

 

 

*Scary!

[prole]

My point is that even if there were roving patrols of MIT trained civil engineers out in force inspecting every bikable city-maintained surface for design flaws that would potentially present an outsized hazard to cyclists and instantaneously modifying them to remove the hazard - there'd still be distracted drivers, patches of grit, folks opening doors, leaf-piles, etc, etc, etc that could make you crash and leave you crippled.some of which are foreseeable, some of which are not... so in the final analysis it's up to you to actively assess what's safe and what isn't rather than relying on the wisdom and foresight of the SDOT.

 

Now where have I heard this kind of argument before? Oh yeah, the oil industry...

 

 

[Off_White]

Quite a leap from A to Z there! Reminds me of the halloween costume post from a few years back!*

*Scary!

 

Hah, I'd forgotten about that one, but it is the season, isn't it? I don't recall the particulars, but I made some sort of wild speculative run based on the assumption that was you in drag front and center, when in fact you're the fat bearded hippy on the left.

[summitchaserCJB]

happy halloween.

[E-rock]

My point is that even if there were roving patrols of MIT trained civil engineers out in force inspecting every bikable city-maintained surface for design flaws that would potentially present an outsized hazard to cyclists and instantaneously modifying them to remove the hazard...

 

Last I checked, a project manager does their job by managing a project, not randomly trolling their company's finished projects for mistakes. In an earthquake retrofit of a bridge, more than one PM was intimately involved in every aspect of the project, and as others have stated, the design flaw that resulted in the injury had been repeatedly pointed out after the fact by cyclists (at which point it was well beyond the point where the problem should still have even existed).

 

It's fine to be all idealogical about personal responsibility as a matter of principle concerning personal safety, but on an indivicual case basis, there were some PM's that shirked THEIR personal responsibility. And the law agreed. And in this country, I don't care if Ayn Rand controls the Senate and Sarah Pailin the House Speaker, the law would still agree.

[E-rock]

The JayB/Fairweather Project Management (and philosophical) Style in Action:

 

JayB: It’s a great morning to be out at the bridge. These boys sure are working hard for low wage, just like the Framers intended.

 

Fairweather: It was a brilliant stroke to contract this retrofit to the lowest bidder.

 

JayB: Say, did we design this 1-inch wide groove running parallel to the direction of traffic? Looking at it now, I’d say that a bicycle tire could be taco’d in this MF’er.

 

Fairweather: Fuck it. If they’re riding with those goddamn skinny tires, they get what they deserve anyways. 23c’s are for Pros riding in Europe, where they don’t put grooves in the roads, because Europe is a Socialist welfare hand-holding dystopia.

 

JayB: You’re right, I’m a big proponent of personal responsibility. It’s not as if we could get in the car after lunch and find every hazard to cyclists that currently exists, so the burden is upon the individual to avoid this one particular hazard, as well. But seeing as how I’ve recognized the hazard, and you’ve recognized that even though you personally believe that bicycles shouldn’t use tires any narrower than a motorcycle, some people still (legally) ride such dangerous contraptions on public roadways that are required to be designed for multiple use, it might be our problem to fix.

 

Fairweather: Fuck it, we're indemnified. Personal responsibility. It’s a bitch, ain’t it?

 

[summitchaserCJB]

I think, wait, do you hear that? I think we are all getting dumber by reading this.

[JayB]

My point is that even if there were roving patrols of MIT trained civil engineers out in force inspecting every bikable city-maintained surface for design flaws that would potentially present an outsized hazard to cyclists and instantaneously modifying them to remove the hazard...

 

Last I checked, a project manager does their job by managing a project, not randomly trolling their company's finished projects for mistakes. In an earthquake retrofit of a bridge, more than one PM was intimately involved in every aspect of the project, and as others have stated, the design flaw that resulted in the injury had been repeatedly pointed out after the fact by cyclists (at which point it was well beyond the point where the problem should still have even existed).

 

It's fine to be all idealogical about personal responsibility as a matter of principle concerning personal safety, but on an indivicual case basis, there were some PM's that shirked THEIR personal responsibility. And the law agreed. And in this country, I don't care if Ayn Rand controls the Senate and Sarah Pailin the House Speaker, the law would still agree.

 

So - did you miss the fact that the first thing I said was:

 

"I'm all for the folks that maintain the roads addressing structural hazards to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians in a timely fashion when they become evident. It may be that the cyclist in question has a legitimate case against the city."?

 

I feel for the guy. The city should have responded when multiple people on road bikes ate shit when trying to ride across the grate. That would have kept the guy in question from getting crippled, and the city from being sued.

 

If you actually commute by bike, by all means use the "every feature on every road is guaranteed to be safe for cyclists" as your default and ride accordingly. I don't.

 

 

 

[E-rock]

So you contend that the cyclist is question must have unwisely assumed that the roads were safe because he had an accident?

 

And because he made this assumption, he did not have a case?

 

Or are those just Fairweather's contentions?

 

There has to be a reasonable level of safety we can assume is inherent in our roadways, otherwise we wouldn't be able to travel at high speed using any vehicle. If I crossed a bridge at night with an engineered trench that was wide enough to swallow my car tire and put me into the drink. Regardless of the fact that it shouldn't have been there in the first place, and had a documented history of causing accidents, I'm at fault for not taking responsibility for my own safety?

[Nitrox]

Wrap the world in cozy foam. Do it for the children, kittens, and bicyclists.

 

 

 

 

[rob]

Nobody is asking to wrap the world is cozy foam, fuckface, they're asking to not actively sabotage it.

[Nitrox]

If only there was something we could do...